The beauty of Bartolomé....

Wow....!  What a day.  I admit, it started a lot earlier than I would have prefered, getting up at 0500hrs is NOT my forté, as many of you could attest to.  However, it was totally worth it.  We departed for Bartolome from Canal Itabaca on a lovely boat where we enjoyed breakfast on the deck and watched Dafné Mayor and Dafné Menor (two very small islands) pass by.  As we approached Bartolomé, we were greeted by a group of 5 or 6 bottlenose dolphins jumping in the wake from the front of our boat...  what a nice welcoming party!  Bartolomé is only 108 m high, but looks like a moonscape as it is nothing more than pock-marked lava landscape.  The only thing that reminded me that I was on planet Earth was the crystalline blue ocean sparkling in the background.  The only place there is green is at the 'neck' of Bartolomé near Pinnacle Rock.  The view from the top of Bartolomé is breathtaking, as you can see how the lavaflows had crept their way toward the Island of Santiago (in the background).  After enjoying the view from the top, our group partook in a view from below the water as well!  We snorkelled in the bay (Bahía Sullivan?) where we watched a sea lion doozing at the shoreline, a group of white-tip sharks resting in an underwater cavern, and saw Galapagos penguins dart past....

As it turns out, Bartolomé is a small world.  The other people in our group today were Canadians as well, from Calgary.  One of the couples are neighbours with the sister of a paramedic I used to work with (no big deal for most of you reading, but I'm sure Taiter, and maybe Jess and Merle will get a laugh out of that).  Also, there was another lady who is the cousin of Nancy Knowlton....  for those of you scrathing your heads right now, Nancy Knowlton is the authour of the recent National Geographic publication "Citizens of the Sea: The wonderous creatures from the census of marine life"....  Well, I think it's just nifty.

Tomorrow, I'm off to bask at Tortuga Bay again with a Brazilian gal from work.  Apparently, there is a much more calm beach a far walk down the long white stretch of the original Tortuga Bay I visited last weekend.  This one supposedly has a little mangrove area as well for some calm snorkelling, good for watching juvenile sharks swim peacefully around the mangrove roots....    Another report to follow.

  Oh also... it seems my english speaking skills are in high demand here.  I'm going to meet a gal from my favorite free wi-fi cafe tomorrow morning while I have a cup of coffee for a bit of 'intercambio la lengua'....

Besos y abrazos de Galapagos!